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How many people are accepted each year?
Are Texas residents given preference?
How long is the program, and when does it end?
Can I take the WREB board exam after completing the program?
What is the most important thing you value in an applicant? Is there one thing I should focus such as GPA or work experience?
Do I need to take the ADAT, DAT or GRE?
What other items are of importance to the Admissions Committee?
Do I need to have private practice experience to be considered?
If I get accepted, when will I be notified?
If I applied in a previous application cycle, do I have to submit all supplemental documents again?
Am I required to take the TOEFL? What if I am a U. S Citizen?
Will my application be considered with a TOEFL internet-based test (iBT) total score of 91? Is there a time when you make an exception?
GPA: Do you accept other agency’s evaluations in place of the “ECE Comprehensive grading”? Will you accept an ECE “best result”? What grade average will be considered?
I will be in San Antonio next week. Can I meet with you and discuss the program?
I have further education such as specialty training, preceptorships, CE, bench prep courses and/or observationships. Will this increase my chances?
I was not invited for an interview. I think I deserved one. Please tell me the reasons why I was rejected to help me prepare for the future.
Class Profile
How many people are accepted each year? 20
Are Texas residents given preference? No, but since we are in Texas, we do have a greater percentage of Texas residents applying.
How long is the program, and when does it end? This is a 30-month program. The program starts with an introductory course in the spring term. This course begins the second week in January with an online learning module. In late February, students arrive on campus for the hands-on component of this course. This training consists of preclinical skills training, classroom sessions, and small group seminars and ends with patient care in June. In July IDEPS are integrated with the traditional students and complete 2 years in clinical training. Students graduate in May.
Can I take the WREB board exam after completing the program? Once you complete the program, you are eligible to take most state or regional licensing exams in the US or Canada, including the exams accepted for Texas licensure.
What is the most important thing you value in an applicant? Is there one thing I should focus such as GPA or work experience? Our selections are holistic. Our goal is to find a class of diverse students with a variety of backgrounds. All applications are scored using a rubric that measures numerous categories which is distributed into three domains: Experience, Personality, and Knowledge. Being strong in one domain but weak in another would be less favorable. Well-rounded candidates, who can score highly in all domains, will have the best chance of interview and final acceptance.
Do I need to take the ADAT, DAT or GRE? These are not required for admission. If you have ADAT, DAT, or GRE scores, you may include them in your application.
What other items are of importance to the Admissions Committee? Many things, including but not limited to - personal survey, letters of evaluation, answers to clinical questions, your interview, extracurricular activities, honors, leadership, knowledge of dentistry as a career, work history, publications and research, your reputation for hand skills and your bench test ability.
Do I need to have private practice experience to be considered? No, we accept candidates that have not practiced, but they usually have other strong dental experiences.
If I get accepted, when will I be notified? Letters of acceptance for the program are generally extended 1-2 months after the last interview.
If I applied in a previous application cycle, do I have to submit all supplemental documents again? You are allowed to request that some of your documents (transcript, NBDE, TOEFL, and ECE) be moved to your new application. We will only allow this once. If you apply for a third cycle, new documentation must be submitted.
Am I required to take the TOEFL? What if I am a U. S Citizen? Yes, all applicants, including U.S. citizens, are required to take the TOEFL. Scores must be no more than 2 years old. An internet-based test (iBT) total score of 92 or higher is required with no exceptions or modifications. We do now also accept the TOEFL iBT Special Home Edition.
Will my application be considered with a TOEFL internet-based test (iBT) total score of 91? Is there a time when you make an exception? No. Applicants who earned less than the iBT total score of 92 are encouraged to retake the TOEFL. If the score is 91 or lower, the application will be considered incomplete and will not be reviewed by the Admissions Committee. We cannot grant exceptions, as this is a minimum requirement for the program.
GPA: Do you accept other agency’s evaluations in place of the “ECE Comprehensive grading”? Will you accept an ECE “best result”? What grade average will be considered? We need to have a standardized process for admissions so that all applicants are evaluated equally. Unfortunately, evaluation services can look at transcripts differently and will give diverse outcomes. To make the process fair and uniform, we have chosen to use ECE as our agency, and to accept only the “comprehensive grade average” and not “best result”. We require a minimum U.S. grade average of 2.50. Applicants with a grade average lower than a 2.50, will not be eligible to apply to the IDEP program.
I will be in San Antonio next week. Can I meet with you and discuss the program? We do not provide individual appointments or do a line-by-line review to point out specific ways to improve your application because this could be interpreted as giving an unfair advantage over other applicants. You can email IDEP@uthscsa.edu to ask specific questions.
I have further education such as specialty training, preceptorships, CE, bench prep courses and/or observationships. Will this increase my chances? It should be remembered that many factors can influence a knowledge or experience score, not just further education. Further education can positively affect your knowledge or experience scoring depending on what the training is, what information we get on your performance, the academic rigor or reputation of the program, length of the program and its clinical or academic applicability to the IDEP program. Showing a consistent track record of your effort to enrich your dental knowledge and skill is commendable.
I was not invited for an interview. I think I deserved one. Please tell me the reasons why I was rejected to help me prepare for the future. Allowing foreign trained dentists the opportunity to practice Dentistry in the United States attracts many highly competitive applicants. It is the profile of the total applicant pool that determines an individual applicant’s competitiveness. This changes each year. We do realize that this can be disappointing and regret that we cannot interview each applicant. We focus our interviews on the strongest candidates and we base that decision on our review of the submitted applications. We look closely at each application and consider a combination of factors. This thorough procedure allows for an effective admission process. Experience tells us that each year brings new opportunities. You can increase your chances in the future by taking a critical look at your application and working to strengthen it. Our program's policy is that we do not discuss specific reasons why an individual candidate was not invited for an interview or was not accepted after an interview as this could be considered coaching and unfair to those that did not get the same level of feedback.
Class Profile
Advanced Standing Program for International Dentists Class of 2025, The 20 students entering the Advanced Standing Program for International Dentists in the Spring 2023 semester were selected from an applicant pool of 319. The entering class had an average score of 99 IBT score on the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL). The class is 60% female and 40% male. 10% of the class are international students requiring a student visa, 35% are U.S. citizens, and 35% are permanent U.S. residents and 20 % are Temporary US residents. 100% of the class had earned a foreign Bachelor of Dental Surgery (BDS), Doctor of Dental Surgery (DDS), or Doctor of Dental Medicine (DMD) degree.
For any further questions, please email us at IDEP@uthscsa.edu